BA Tigers minors player of the year, Colt Keith. Some interesting stuff on how he makes adjustments: Spoiler Colt Keith: Tigers 2023 Minor League Player Of The Year September 19, 2023September 19, 2023Emily Waldon0 Professional baseball has been a game of adjustments for 22-year-old third baseman Colt Keith. “I watch video of my swings every single game, because at this point I know what my swing’s supposed to look like,” Keith said. “I can watch my swing and say, ‘OK, I was feeling this.’ And if I look at the video, I can see, ‘OK, well that’s why, because I’m maybe too squatty, or my hands are here.’ “I’ve done that the entire season and just made small adjustments.” The Tigers drafted Keith out of high school in the fifth and final round of the 2020 draft. He turned in productive—but injury-shortened—2021 and 2022 seasons before breaking through this year. Through 121 games for Double-A Erie and Triple-A Toledo, he hit .311/.386/.562 with 27 home runs and 99 RBIs. Keith views a few of the hitting tweaks he made last offseason as keys to his offensive development. “With me as being a lefthanded batter, I do everything right-legged except for hitting,” Keith said. “It’s weird. So when I get to where I want to attack, and I try to do too much, I really try to attack with my right leg, which leads me to drift out of my backside when I hit. “I’m really focusing on staying on my stance over my back leg when I’m hitting, and staying in my hips, and not jumping toward the pitcher.” Outside of the mechanical adjustments, another key factor has been pitch selection. “If I see a pitch that’s down, I normally just take it because there’s not a lot that I personally can do with that,” Keith said. “I’m a really good high-fastball hitter, and high-offspeed hitter, even curveballs at top of the zone . . . “I’m not trying to lift anything . . . I’m just trying to backspin (the ball) to wherever it’s pitched. Usually it sits at the top of the zone inside, which I would say is my hot zone.” Keith was able to up his power production dramatically while keeping his strikeout (21%) and walk rates (10.6%) consistent with last season. “We’re having a lot of fun,” Keith said. “It’s been a lot of fun.”
We've sucked at many things and done many stupid signings and trades over the last 7-8 years. Chris Fetter turning the shit he's had to work with into competent, league average-ish pitching staffs for three years is probably up there with the best things they've done in that stretch. We're 19th in ERA and 11th in FIP as a staff right now. If we had someone of that caliber running the staff back in the early 2010s we probably have at least one ring and maybe more.
Matt Shepard is at the end of his 5th season calling Tigers games and he's still somehow shocked when 90% of the HR we hit land over the fence. It's like the thought doesn't even occur to him until it hits a fan 5+ rows deep even though the OF has his back turned and runs into the wall.
Former Cubs guy: The Detroit Tigers have named innovative and experienced executive Jeff Greenberg as the club’s General Manager. Greenberg, 37, will report to President of Baseball Operations, Scott Harris, and joins the Tigers after spending the last 16 months as an Associate General Manager with the Chicago Blackhawks. Greenberg will be the 20th General Manager in the 123-year history of the club, dating back to 1901. Prior to joining the Blackhawks, Greenberg spent 11 seasons with the Chicago Cubs, including his final three seasons as an Assistant General Manager. He also held roles as Director of Pro Scouting and Baseball Operations, Director of Baseball Operations and Assistant to the General Manager. While with the Cubs, Greenberg played a key role in creating the systems and strategies that helped the Cubs scout and develop talent, leading to five postseason appearances during his tenure, including the 2016 World Series championship. “I’m thrilled to add an executive of Jeff’s quality to our baseball operations leadership team,” said Harris. “Throughout this search, it was important for me to find someone who can fit seamlessly into the culture we’re building here. I also wanted to bring in someone with a fresh perspective and new ideas that could challenge us on a daily basis and make us all better as we strive towards our goal of bringing postseason baseball back to Detroit. We’re excited to welcome Jeff, his wife, Erin, and their sons, Leo and Sam to the Tigers family.” In his most recent role with the Blackhawks, Greenberg oversaw the strategic systems and processes in hockey operations. He worked across all functions of hockey operations, including scouting, development, coaching and operations to establish and optimize a modern, continually evolving approach. “It’s an extraordinary honor to take on this role with one of the most historic franchises in Major League Baseball,” said Greenberg. “Throughout my conversations with Scott, Chris Ilitch and the rest of the team with the Tigers, it became clear that this organization is headed in a great direction with an incredible culture of development and innovation that I’m excited to be part of. Another constant message in those conversations was that Tigers fans want to see winning baseball deep into October. I’m excited to get to work with our front office on off-season and longer-term plans to make that our reality.” Before his time in Chicago, Greenberg was an intern with the Pittsburgh Pirates (2006, 2008), Arizona Diamondbacks (2010) and Major League Baseball (2009-11). A native of Pittsburgh, PA, Greenberg is a graduate of Columbia Law School (JD, 2011) and the University of Pennsylvania (BA, 2008). He and his wife, Erin, have two sons, Leo and Sam.
12 years ago me would probably be over the moon about this hire and analytics being this front and center here. Current me doesn't care and just wants to play a game that matters after April.
I'm just happy we're hiring modern baseball leaders rather than fossils like Dave Littlefield. I don't expect these guys to be miracle workers in next year or two b/c the talent starting point is so low, but this front office looks to me much more like the type of front offices that worked for Arizona, Baltimore, etc. in their turnarounds than the Avila FO.
So the guy was brought in be a yes man, and bring our analytics from 29th in the league to 20-25 range?
I think our analytics team is already in decent shape. Whether we have the right people teaching the analytics to make players better up and down the system is the question. And we'll probably see what Harris thinks the answer to that question is when the minor league seasons are over and they either do or don't make a bunch of changes.
So are we far enough along that we can consider keeping Skubal long term? Because if not we should trade him this Winter.
I don’t want to see it either but if Harris doesn’t see us contending any time soon it doesn’t make sense to keep him. I guess a bigger question now is will Rodriguez even opt out? I imagine his mediocre second half won’t change his market all that much but maybe?
Skubal has 3 years left before he can become a FA. I'd be shocked if we really considered trading him unless we were getting the kind of package that happens once every few years. I think it's more likely they try to lock him up beyond 3 years to try to hide another low spending winter than we even hear his name on the block.
Posted this in the wrong thread last night: Other than the whole durability thing, Skubal is dominating: Doesn't include tonight, to my best knowledge. 5.5 WAR last 187 IP.
I predicted 79 wins before the season so I need another one. Don't look at any of my other predictions.
Vinegar Strokes does Tork get put on the probation bust list if he finishes with the year with 7 more RBI’s to get him to 100?
I have no clue if this is good or bad for us. I just hope we're not the ones to resign him to longer term.
Since Lorenzen's no-hitter, he's 3-4, averaging under 4 ip a start, has an ERA of 8.89 and an OPS against over 1.000.
Hinch says he's fine and it's more of a mental break before they decide what his offseason program should look like. No clue if that's accurate or not. But that's the Tigers' story.
I’m not buying it. It’s been 16-17 months since his surgery. I think he threw 1 bullpen and got tired (just like Nick Quintana).